The Time Remaining
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: A partial success can be the most bitter failure. Post-game FE3/Monshou no Nazo, contains Marth/Caeda, Merric/Elice, and all manner of spoilers.


**The Time Remaining**

Based off the "bad" ending to FE3. Character names from the NoA translation of _Shadow Dragon_, but characterization is drawn mostly from _Monshou no Nazo_. Characters without official NoA names (Cecil, Mallesia) are given the fan-names I liked best. Dialogue, alas, also owes something to the FE3 script.

Warning: Massive, massive spoilers for FE3, aka _Monshou no Nazo_. Contains mild fantasy violence, character death both on-screen and off, coarse language, and implied intimate activities between consenting human adults.

Disclaimer: I do not own _Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, Fire Emblem: Monshou no Nazo_, or any of the characters therein.

* * *

_*** A partial success can be the most bitter failure. ***_

_**Imperial Calendar, Year 3**_

Blood. Blood on the floor, blood on his clothes and on Hardin's. Blood on both of their weapons. Blood churned in his ears, so that Marth could barely hear the halting words of the Emperor.

"Nyna... please take care of Nyna." Marth wanted to reassure Hardin that he would, of course he would, but the monologue continued to tumble forth from the Emperor's stained lips. "I hope... she can forgive me."

"I'm sure Nyna will forgive you, Hardin. The empress is very... kind." Marth's voice trailed off as he saw something change in the other man's eyes. "Hardin? Coyote?"

He sat there on the floor of the throne room, at a loss as to what he should possibly do now. Hardin dead, Tiki locked away, the Starsphere shattered, no good way to defeat Gharnef, much less Medeus... where did he go from here? Something cold and hard nudged against his hand. Marth looked down to see the Darksphere, which must have rolled away from the dying Emperor. Marth picked it up; the accursed sphere fit easily into his hand. It wasn't black, exactly-- more of a storm-cloud gray. It seemed laughable that this little ball of stone, or glass, or whatever it was, might destroy a man.

"Prince Marth, you're bleeding all over the place," came a bold and snappy voice at his ear. "Allow me."

Marth submitted to the attention, wondering why Marissa hadn't tried to heal Hardin once the Emperor came to his senses. It probably hadn't worked in Hardin's favor that he'd confessed his callous desire to destroy Marissa's homeland before the duel. But that was the corruption of the Darksphere speaking, not Hardin's true heart. Marissa had never known Hardin as the just and brave knight he really was, and only knew him as the hated tyrant of an Emperor. Once Marissa was done with her staff work, Marth rose to his feet, ignoring the residual pain in his left leg. Marissa was skilled at repairing weapons, but she never could repair _people_ without a fair amount of hurt... .

Marth shook his head. His mind was all a jumble, reeling from shock and the scent of blood. But the eyes of his knights and his allies all were upon him, and he had to act accordingly. He looked from face to face, hoping for some direction; with few exceptions, everyone seemed terribly perturbed. Cain, Merric, Ogma, Palla and Catria... all showed varying degrees of upset, and Marth felt certain that even Sirius, behind his mask, felt dismay over how the whole business ended. Then Marth saw Roshea, whose eyes were filled with tears over the death of his sovereign and former commander.

_Not to mention all of his closest friends. _

Marth fumbled with the clasp of his cloak until he had it free, then draped the cloak across the body of the Emperor. He really should say something, but the words just weren't there. Marth nearly stumbled over the corpse when Jagen clapped him on the back.

"Marth, it's finally over. Now, the world is safe." The harsh lines of the old knight's face grew still more severe as he considered the covered remains of Hardin. "Look, the priestesses are over there."

Marth followed Jagen's direction. Four young women in regal robes came spilling in the doorway, one blonde, two with auburn hair, and one--

"Sister!" Marth stepped forward, another bolt of pain ripping up his leg. "And there's Empress Nyna... and Lena and Maria as well. It's great to see that everybody is safe."

"Marth, you finally came," exclaimed Nyna, heiress of Archanea. Her blue eyes glowed like the heart of a flame. "I am so happy. I will need your help to restore Archanea."

"You really worked hard, Marth," said Elice, in a straightforward compliment from elder sister to younger brother. "You are my pride."

Bishop Lena, a tome of vicious fire spells in her hands, chimed in with her lovely soft voice.

"Prince Marth, with our combined strength we have already vanquished Gharnef. Please relax."

Beside her, tiny Princess Maria of Macedon added her own assurances.

"The world is safe now. Your highness, please hurry back to Altea." She nudged him with her Recover staff, dissolving the remaining pain.

Marth stared at her, uncomprehending. Hurry back home? After all this-- the Battle of the Pass, and the deaths of so many fine knights? Hurry home, with the late Emperor dead on the floor and not even cold? Yet they clustered around him like the chorus of a pageant, assuring him that all was well, that his task was done, that he must head for Altea straight-away.

"Really? It's good to see everybody well. But you all don't look too good...." The words sounded stupid to his own ears, but at that moment, he wasn't capable of much else. There seemed something odd about their faces, but perhaps it was only something wrong with his eyes.

"Everybody is tired from battling Gharnef. But it doesn't matter now, so please don't worry," said Nyna.

"Really?" Marth wondered which of the princesses had used the Starlight spell to defeat the Dark Pontifex and how they had obtained the tome to begin with. But a more pressing matter weighed upon him. "Nyna, I am sorry about Hardin. I couldn't save him."

Part of him expected some kind of punishment-- surely striking down the Emperor, even with just cause, carried some penalty? There should have been a way, Marth thought, to redeem Hardin without killing him.

"It's fine. He was devoured by his own ambitions, so it is not unexpected that he was lost." Nyna brushed off the memory of her late husband as though flicking away drops of rain from her collar. "Well, Marth, you should hurry back to your homeland. Everybody is probably worried about you. With your remaining time, you must live well."

She kissed him on the cheek; either his face was overhot or her lips terribly cold.

"As long as there are still people in this world, your name will never be forgotten."

X

Back to Altea they went-- Marth and Elice, Merric and Cain and faithful Jagen, and Cecilia and her junior knights. The rest of Marth's army dispersed. Ogma sailed east to for Talys, where Princess Caeda was busy keeping the peace at the far end of the Empire. Palla and Catria flew south to Macedon. Sirius simply disappeared, claiming his business on Archanea was finished. _On_ Archanea, as in on the continent, as opposed to merely in the kingdom. Marth wondered where else Sirius might have business. Still others-- Navarre and the dancing girl Fina among them-- disappeared without giving any indication of where they might go. The liberation forces thus scattered like leaves in the wind.

The Alteans took the overland route, the long journey across the plains of Aurelis. Thousands of citizens-- some richly dressed and others in rags-- lined the roads to cheer them. Archanean or Aurelian, it made no difference; they all expressed nothing short of adulation for the Prince of Light, the one who'd saved them from the Dark Emperor.

_Of course, not two years ago, they'd been cheering _for_ Hardin and the rest of the Aurelian heroes. Cheering for Wolf and for Sedgar...._

Back in Altea, Sir Arran, still not recovered from the illness that had kept him out of battle, had a feast waiting for them at the castle. Marth looked at the full table, thought of the damage Hardin's troops caused to the Altean fields and granaries, and wondered how Arran had managed it. And then there were speeches, and awards and commendations, and a grand service in St. Anri's Temple. There were thanksgiving celebrations and village fetes and a great deal of cleaning up to do. Visits with Elice to the ill and the wounded, letters of condolence to the families of the war dead, sentences for war criminals... and issues that were rather more complicated.

In spite of the damage done to his country, the restoration caused less heartache than Marth anticipated. On some level, it was almost routine. He had, after all, done all this before. It was the private moments that meant most to him now. Opening a letter from Caeda, and having blue flower-petals cascade from the envelope. Taking a walk by the seashore with Merric in the morning, when the birds flew out from their nesting sites across the water. Sitting quietly with Elice in the evening, drinking the red tea made from rose-berries. Rose-berry tea was drunk everywhere in Altea, of course, but Elice's tea always tasted a little better, tasted deeper, richer, more complex. Settling into this routine, of tea and morning walks and letters from afar, allowed Marth to feel like a person again-- a friend, a brother, a future husband-- instead of merely a role.

X

His preparations to formally claim his father's throne as the fifth king of Altea were complicated by the existence of Gra. Princess Sheema, last surviving member of the House of Gra, declined the crown and went to live as a private citizen of Archanea. From an Altean perspective, it was perfect-- breakaway Gra could be restored to its motherland, and Altea would once again be whole. But Gra wasn't simply an empty space on a map; it had its nobles who wanted their rights upheld, its citizens who didn't consider themselves Alteans and wouldn't answer to the name. Negotiations with the nobles and village elders dragged on-- would there be one coronation, or two? What about a coronation in Altea and a more simple investiture in the capital of Gra? Was Marth to be known as King of Altea and Gra, or would Gra disappear entirely from the maps?

"I'm half tempted to track down Sheema myself and drag her back to Gra to just be rid of the issue," Marth said to Merric as they walked along the shoreline one gray morning.

"You could give Gra to Elice and keep it as a sister kingdom. The people of Gra like brave princesses," Merric replied as he sent a rock skipping across the water. "Four. That's terrible."

"I've thought of that, but I've a few hard-liners on our side who want Gra absorbed completely. It's one Greater Altea, with the same borders as Anri's kingdom, or nothing." Marth scooped up a rock of his own, and it made five satisfying skips before disappearing in the waves.

"I take it Jagen is one of those hard-liners?"

"Jagen and Cain are among them, yes. Cain swears that if I'd been there when Gra betrayed us in 602, if I'd seen the slaughter for myself, I'd want them wiped from existence without hesitation." Another rock went flying, this time making a pathetic two skips before failing. "That argument works for the nobles, but what do the villagers and farmers have to do with any of it? It wasn't their war."

"True."

Down at the water's edge, three gulls fought over a large and rotten fish; their shrill victory cries pierced the morning. Marth watched them awhile.

"You know, I think we had this exact conversation two years ago, right before Sheema popped up."

"Right again," agreed Merric.

"I think I'm having a lot of conversations for the second time. Rebuilding the gates of Westhaven, reparations to farmers for having their crops trampled by my army and everyone else's, fixing the colonnade at St. Anri's, that whole business with the feud between Westhaven and Easthaven...."

"It's no different than building sand-castles. Every time we think we have it right, the water comes rushing in to knock it all down." Merric sent another stone skipping across the water. "Seven."

Marth watched the disturbed surface of the sea. A vivid dream from the previous night lingered on in his brain, an image of the Princess Nyna's face melting like wax, her pale skin dripping away to show the hideous features of the Dark Pontifex.

"Eight," Merric said.

"I saw you use magic to keep that one aloft."

"Did not."

"Did so. The air doesn't turn green on its own."

"I do wonder how the princesses managed to overcome Gharnef without using Starlight," Merric said, voicing a question that lay silent in Marth's own mind. "Archsage Gotoh sounded definitive in the last war that only Starlight could beat Gharnef, and well...he'd be the resident expert on the subject."

"They wouldn't tell me any details," Marth replied. "They said only that their combined powers managed it with great effort."

"Perhaps there's something Gotoh didn't know about the combined gifts of four noble ladies?" Yet Merric didn't truly believe that... doubt was plain in his eyes despite the facade of light humor.

"If there truly were a way to defeat Gharnef's darkness without Starlight, I wish Lord Gotoh would have told me in the first place." Finding four such gifted ladies in the War of Darkness might have been possible even _without_ Elice. But Gotoh claimed that nothing save Starlight would seal Gharnef's power, and to create the Starlight tome, the Starsphere was subjected to the forces that left it broken and scattered. And so one war led directly into the next, successive waves upon their fragile shore of peace.

X

The villagers of Easthaven had, in the giddy days after the War of Darkness, painted one wall in tribute to Altea's heroes. It showed Jagen, of course, in his violet armor, and Draug with his great lance, and Gordin aiming an arrow of fire. There was Cain with an improbably large sword, and next to him stood the most popular hero of the war not named Prince Marth-- a tall paladin in verdant armor wielding a three-pronged lance of gold. Some paint had splashed across his face in the intervening years, but even now his identity was obvious to Marth.

Abel. Altea's Shield. The magnificent warrior who traded his armor for a shopkeeper's apron, who married a beautiful girl from a faraway land and lived happily as one of the people. Abel, who picked up his lance and armor again to fight against his own lord, his own countrymen.

Never mind that Abel had only done so because Hardin's troops held his beloved wife Est hostage and threatened to kill her if Abel did not follow their orders... the damaged mural said what the people of Easthaven thought of their hero now. Marth had quickly issued a proclamation that all Altean soldiers who fought for Hardin under duress or threat of death-- and the whole Est situation certainly counted-- would receive amnesty. Yet Abel never came to see his name cleared. He had vanished, yet lived on in the popular memory-- to some still a hero, and a wronged hero at that, to others a traitor and would-be regicide.

Marth traced a finger across the flaking gold paint of Abel's lance. Gradivus. Like all the treasures of the thief who founded Archanea, the lance seemed determined to inflict suffering on those who used it. Camus, Abel, Hardin. Good men, great warriors, all dead or ruined.

Marth had given the Fire Emblem back to Nyna before leaving for Altea. He was relieved to have it gone, as he could no longer stand to wear or even touch it now that he truly knew what "Anri's Emblem" was. The most prized treasure of House Archanea was nothing more than a despoiled remnant of what it once had been. The Emblem was a thing of failure to him now. But for one piece of the Starsphere, he might have restored the cold and barren Emblem to its glory as the Shield of Seals. But the Starsphere remained broken, the Emblem stayed despoiled, and Tiki still slept her lonely sleep in the Temple of the Ice Dragons.

XXX

Prince Marth was not the most exciting person to know. Excitement swirled around him, perhaps-- intrigue and treachery and the occasional Dark Dragon hell-bent on destroying civilization. But Marth himself hadn't much changed from the days when he and Merric were lads taking lessons together in the old schoolroom in Altea Castle. Give him some difficult archaic word, and he could spell it, define it, recite the etymology, and use it in a sentence. Give him a pun to decode or riddle to unravel, and he'd just stare as though Merric's hair had turned violet. Small wonder that trickster Xane had such pleasure in confounding the prince.

They'd been around the continent twice, and Marth hadn't managed to pick up on the life that pulsed beneath the different names on the world map. Merric was awed by the traces of ancient empires in Dolhr and Macedon, could have spent a lifetime wandering the back alleys of Pales, where every corner held six centuries' worth of secrets. No, for Marth, the journey was all about _lessons_, about their schoolbooks come to life. Oh, there were moments-- like when they were rummaging through the ruins of Raman Temple-- that Marth broke off from the business of _doing_ something to just spend a second contemplating the beauty and wonder and deep sadness of it all. But then it was back to the task at hand-- people to find, items to use, Point A to Point B.

Merric hoped that narrow focus would broaden out a bit once they all were home again and there weren't monsters to slay or madmen tearing up the country. And for a while, he had hope. But by the time the Midsummer Festival passed, Merric was beginning to have doubts about Marth's ability to just enjoy the peace they'd earned at phenomenal cost. There was never any time, Marth said. No time for spending an evening at the tavern with old comrades, no time for a foray up to Khadein for a bit of culture. It was as though he didn't want to be caught doing anything that wasn't, in some way, useful. Spending an evening discussing fourth-century poetry with Elice was about as exciting as things got around Castle Altea. Merric had to admit to himself that his friend was, deep down, rather boring. In another life, perhaps Marth might have been the sort of professor interested in one specialized subject to the exclusion of all else. Merric had more than one teacher at Khadein in _that_ mold.

"No, I'd never trade places with you in a hundred years. You do officially, _objectively_, have the worst job in all Altea," Merric said with mild sarcasm on one of their walks; he was provoked to it by the way Marth was ignoring a lovely sunrise in favor of discussing tax exemptions for the parents of deceased soldiers.

"Objectively?" Marth echoed. "How's that?"

"All state positions come with a pension-- except yours."

"I suppose it doesn't," Marth said, after a moment of staring blankly at Merric, and he followed it with a forced laugh. "That reminds me. We need to look into raising the stipend for retired counselors. From what Cain tells me, Malledus is having some troubles these days, and after all he's done for us it just isn't right...."

Merric shook his head. Perhaps he should talk to Elice about hiring a court fool. Khadein had some marvelous jugglers and illusionists, and one might be willing to relocate for the gold.

The Temple Knights, too, seemed out of sorts. Cain retired from active duty. Gordin went off to join the Imperial troops in Archanea, leaving his little brother Ryan as the primary archer in the castle garrison. Cecilia, now the senior knight on duty, carried on gamely with Sir Rody as her second-in-command, but there were holes now in the roster, gaps of skill and experience that it might take years to fill. And there was one other detail....

"You've gotta understand," said Draug, over one drink too many at the Dragon's Head. "Abel _meant_ something to us." Draug was unable or unwilling to go further, but Merric understood. The Temple Knights who accompanied Marth into exile during the War of Darkness had forged bonds as close as those of brotherhood, and Abel's voluntary exile now felt the same as a death. Worse, it was a death with no grave to decorate, no anniversary to commemorate... only a ragged hole in everyone's memories.

No, while the _people_ of Altea seemed resilient enough, Altea's leader and her line of defense both seemed afflicted by a malaise that had less to do with the Dog Days of summer than it did with wounds of the spirit.

Merric was pleased when their old friend Lena, now Bishop of Macedon, came for a visit. Lena was the most skilled healer Merric knew-- besides Princess Elice, of course. Lena watched Marth subtly through dinner. Merric was certain Lena would notice the way Marth pushed the food around on his plate without eating half of it, would catch how little Marth contributed to the conversation beyond dry status updates, how he showed no inclination to linger over wine after the meal ended.

"There is nothing ailing him that I can heal," she reported to Merric once the prince and princess had retired for the night.

"Then there is nothing truly the matter." Lena, in Merric's experience, could heal anything save death itself. "He really does just need to take better care of himself."

"I did not say that," replied Lena, and Merric looked at her sharply. "I have seen cases where a dark seed in the mind grew into illness that overwhelmed the body. Prince Marth has been exposed to the darkest of powers in these wars. I hope... I hope that this is not the case."

"You can't imagine he would go the way of Hardin."

"No. The Em-- King Hardin, while a good man, had jealousies in his heart for darkness to feed upon. When Prince Marth blames someone unjustly, the person he blames is always himself."

Merric conceded that this was true. The cure, he thought, was more walks on the beach, more evenings with friends, and less of indignant nobles and squabbling villagers. And a week or so in Khadein would be ideal, as well.

"Will you be returning to Khadein soon?" Lena asked him, as though plucking the thought from his mind. "Your studies there have been interrupted many times."

"Ah, no. I want to enjoy my homeland a while; it seems every time I turn my back, something terrible happens."

That was part of the truth, another part of it being that Merric simply didn't want to see Ellerean's face for the time being. Being coerced into a honor duel was not one of his fondest memories of the city of magic. Ellerean was in his glory now, Pontifex Wendell's presumptive heir, and Merric would just as soon stay away from the Academy.

XXX

"Mar-Mar?" The voice floated to him through the darkness.

"Tiki?" Marth cast about in the void. His hands closed around something, but the hands couldn't really feel, and the something didn't seem to be truly there.

"Are you real? I'm always alone."

Marth could hear a shiver of dread in the little girl's voice.

"I think I'm real. Tiki, where are you?"

"Right here." In front of him and behind him at the same time. "Mar-Mar, I don't like it here. It's dark and I'm cold."

"I'm sorry, Tiki. I let you down."

Yet Tiki seemed not to hear him, seemed not to care that it was Marth's own fault she was kept in the cold and the darkness.

"Mar-Mar, stay with me for a while. It's not so cold with you here. Not so dark, either."

"Tiki...." He could feel her now, or at least feel _something_, small and vulnerable and holding onto him in desperation. "I wish I could have taken you. I wish I could have kept you safe."

They clung together in the dim and formless void until the rising sun above Altea cut apart the dream.

Marth rubbed at his eyes. _I need to have my hair cut_, he thought; the long strands were falling into his eyes in the front and past his collar in the back. It was a splendidly mundane thought that helped to dispel the shreds of his bleak dream about Tiki. Marth lay in bed a few moments, watching the western sky grow pale through his window. Elice had the eastern side of the tower, and the morning sunshine; Marth had sunsets and the last of the night's stars. When the final star vanished from the window, Marth hauled himself out of the bed and began to search about underneath it. He quickly found what he was looking for-- a carved wooden chest, one of the very few things he'd carried with him to Talys when the castle fell in 602. Then, it contained a scattering of things the younger Marth had believed to be precious; now, it held something more precious than all the gold in the treasury.

They looked almost like jewels; one could believe the Geosphere to be polished emerald, the Lifesphere a ruby, the Lightsphere golden topaz. The eleven shards of the Starsphere, gathered in a silken pouch, might have been sparkling points of sapphire. Only the Darksphere was clearly not something mined from the earth and polished by a lapidary's hands. Four sacred orbs and the remains of a fifth, treasures that put to shame the old regalia of Archanea. Marth did not touch the Darksphere, but he could not keep himself from lifting the others out and admiring them. The Lifesphere was warm to the touch, the Lightsphere seemed to hold a bit of the sun in its center, and the Geosphere was just so _reassuring_ to cradle in one's hand. As for the Starsphere, to carry even a fragment or two into battle made one feel invincible.

But eleven fragments of the Starsphere were, in the end, no good to anyone at all. If only he had managed to find the twelfth!

X

The surest sign of peace taking hold was the parade of old friends that passed through the courtyard of Castle Altea. First Lena, though she came without her old partner Julian. Then Catria the White breezed through; Marth thought she might be seeking news of her sister Est. He had none, as Est had vanished as completely as her husband. Yet they had not left together; Marth only hoped that Est and Abel had found one another and mended things. Not a week after Catria left disappointed, Sir Astram came to dine with them. He spoke of the successful reorganization of the Imperial Knights of Archanea, and of his upcoming marriage to Lady Midia. He also spoke of Nyna, and with the highest praise.

"Empress Nyna gains in strength. She needs no foreign king behind her throne now."

"Perhaps she never did," Marth replied. "It is a shame that the late Bishop contrived such a situation." Old Boah paid a terrible price for engineering the marriage between Nyna and Hardin-- paid for it with his life, as had too many others.

Marth drank toasts to the Empress, but his attention kept straying to the Mercurius sword. Astram of course had taken it off to dine, and it lay at the far end of the table, out of either man's reach. Three times in the last war Astram raised that blade against him before agreeing to listen to Marth and take arms against the mad Emperor. How long before that unholy weapon was raised again against an ally?

X

Not all who passed through the gates of Altea Castle came for pleasure, of course, or even pleasure with ulterior motives. A delegation from Macedon were the first official guests received by Marth and Elice since the end of war; they came to restore diplomatic relations between King Michalis and the House of Anri. Marth's father had never recognized Michalis as anything but a usurper, and Marth had been happy to acknowledge Princess Minerva as Macedon's head of state in the brief period between wars, so the whole situation was delicate as spun glass and every bit as brittle.

The reemergence of King Michalis, long thought dead, was a shock, and the idea of his bloodstained hands upon the reins of the Macedonian state bothered Marth a great deal. Never mind that the king was brilliant and popular, never mind that he claimed to have repented of allying with dark dragons and dark sorcerers. There seemed something fundamentally wrong about a world wherein Michalis kept his life and his throne, and Hardin died unmourned by even his wife. Michalis didn't have the excuse of the Darksphere behind his crimes. But his friend Minerva seemed only too happy to relinquish the crown to her brother, and Marth had no choice but to respect that decision.

Lord Nestor was the new ambassador; Marth did not know the man, and he was sorry not to see his friends Catria and Palla in the delegation. He could have trusted either of the Whitewinged Knights, whereas Marth had a lasting suspicion of high-ranking Macedonians after the generals' coup against Minerva. Nestor, at least, was a former counselor to the late King Osmond rather than one of Michalis' tame officers. The man seemed pleasant enough, but far closer to wily Malledeus than to blunt and uncompromising Jagen. Marth wondered what role Nestor had played in the chaos that led Macedon to nearly devour itself, what things the man had whispered in the ear of Michalis, of Minerva, of the renegade generals.

"Princess Minerva has set aside politics. She spends her days in the air," said Nestor, and Marth listened for shades of meaning between the spoken words. "It is the Princess Maria who takes an active role in government these days."

"Maria?" She was but a small child, too young to be effective in battle even as a healer, and laughably young for a counselor.

"Our princess is wise beyond her years."

"She has tasted a great deal of the pain and suffering that humans inflict on one another," Marth agreed. He had, after all, freed Maria from the captivity into which she'd been placed by her own beloved brother. The Macedonian royal family was a nest of obsession, betrayal, and murder, and if any of them could find peace in it, Marth wished them well. He would have to ask Elice, though, what she thought of the small princess with whom she'd battled Gharnef.

XXX

Prince Marth fell ill shortly after the Macedonian delegation left. In the morning, he walked with Merric as usual, but by mid-afternoon Marth was suffering from fever. Even with Elice's care, the prince was several days abed, and while Marth was never outright delirious, the fever seemed to spark strange obsessions in his mind.

"Merric, do you remember Sedgar?"

"Yes, of course."

"I had to kill him. I didn't want to, but he wouldn't listen to me. He was aiming for Catria... he was going to kill her, Merric. I had to...."

Ah, thought Merric. That again. The bloody, bloody Battle of the Pass.

"Marth, you did what you could to make them see sense. No man could have done more to recruit them."

"Sedgar... he said...."

"I heard what he said. He must have been as crazy as Hardin by the end. There are some people in this fair world you just can't reason with."

"He wouldn't listen," Marth said, though _he_ was plainly not listening to Merric. "They wouldn't listen, any of them...." And he put his hand to his throat, as though the terrible thoughts were choking him. In truth, he was only clutching at a locket, a gift from Elice, that hung around his neck.

Merric ended up using a Sleep Staff to get the prince to rest. He felt a little guilty about it, and felt sore for having the squander the new staff. It was an innovation from Khadein, which apparently was having a renaissance now that all of Gharnef's stooges were kicked out. Merric had the first and only Sleep Staff in Altea, and he would have given it to Elice as a present, except that now it was slightly used. Very slightly so, but used nonetheless.

Merric left the bedchamber shaking his head, and then walked right into an argument between Elice and Cain. Cain, since leaving the Temple Knights, had set himself up as Jagen's right-hand man and eventual successor, and he was already comfortable enough in the role to indulge in the brutal honestly in which Jagen specialized.

"How serious is this, your highness?"

"It's not remotely serious, Cain," Elice replied. "Marth should be himself again in a few days."

"I'm glad of that. Something's been off about his behavior for the better part of two months." Cain's eyes had a smoldering quality even when he was in a good mood, and when he was in a less-than-good mood, the effect was unnerving. "I can understand you not wanting to spread the news wide and cause panic, but there are some of us who ought to be informed."

"I assure you I have not been keeping secrets from the council," Elice said. "This is a temporary indisposition."

"Forgive me, princess, but I believe that was said of Sir Arran as well. The man can now barely walk."

Merric felt compelled to interrupt.

"Arran would have been fine if he hadn't insisted on haring off into battle until he could no longer ride his damned horse. A healer can't help a man who doesn't mind his own mortal body." It was a shame, as Arran was only partway through his fourth decade and should have enjoyed many years yet, but Elice had no fault in his decline.

Cain was unrelenting; he turned his searing gaze back on Elice.

"If the prince does not recover, there will be no one to wield Falchion should Medeus rise again."

"We are all aware of the gravity of the situation," said Elice. "I appreciate your concern for my brother's well-being, but...." Elice, unflappable Elice, pursed her lips as though unsure where to go from there.

Merric, too, felt annoyed that Cain was being so graceless, and once Elice had left them, Merric felt obliged to be sharp with the headstrong junior counselor.

"There's a great deal more worth in a man than whether or not he is bound to a weapon. Am I only the sum of Excalibur's power?"

Cain, though, remained unmoved.

"We defeated the Emperor, but we failed in our mission. The power of Medeus has not been sealed away. As for Gharnef, we already killed him once, so who's to say he won't come back a third time? Or a fourth?" For an instant, Merric could see a terrible pain behind the fierce light in Cain's eyes. "This peace exists balanced on a sword's edge, Merric. The sword is Falchion, and only one man alive can use it."

Merric had no easy answer for this.

"He's not dying, Cain. It's a nuisance illness; I've been there myself a dozen--"

"I'm sending word to Talys," Cain said, and cut off the conversation.

XXX

Elice said he wasn't well enough to go beyond their apartments, so Marth conducted business from the sitting room in the tower. It felt rather like a return to childhood lessons, sitting there at the small table with books and papers and sweets spread around him. Elice poured tea, and it would have been quite cozy if not for the thoroughly disturbing news out of Macedon. King Michalis liked to surprise people, it seemed. Killing his father and passing it off as the work of foreign assassins, declaring an alliance with the Dolhr Empire, resurfacing alive and undiminished two years after his supposed death... each stunt was bolder than the last. But the announcement of his marriage to Lena, to sweet Bishop Lena, shocked Marth as thoroughly any previous exploit.

"I cannot believe she would marry that man. He's a murderer." Causing death in war, even regrettable death, was not the same as committing _patricide_ in a time of peace. Killing Sedgar to save Catria didn't possibly equate to killing one's father in his own halls; Sedgar at least opened himself to the possibility of death when he raised his bow.

"Michalis believed his acts were necessary to secure the future of Macedon. And, in truth, he was convinced the old king was on the verge of disinheriting him in favor of Minerva."

"So?"

Elice laughed. It disconcerted Marth, as there seemed a strange dark undercurrent in her laugh.

"Marth, you don't understand the ways of Macedon. A disinherited prince doesn't just go off to sulk, or retire to a monastery. Michalis would have been eliminated with days of losing his birthright. In his own mind, he acted in self-defense."

Marth balked at even a hint that Michalis' calculations regarding old King Osmond might be placed on the same page as his own arithmetic with the lives of Sedgar and Catria.

"For years, Lena has talked of nothing but her desire to serve those broken by the wars. I can't see her turning away from her mission just for Macedon's crown. She must be under a spell."

"Macedon needs to be healed. Lena sees the opportunity to minister to an entire nation; that is hardly abandoning her mission. Would you see me leave Altea to wall myself up in a monastery?"

Marth stared into his half-finished cup of tea. Red, he thought. Bloody Macedonian red.

"No, of course not, Elice. That would be very silly." Lena did have the gift of seeing a person's true worth, even down to uncovering the virtues in thieves and mercenaries. And Michalis had, at least, saved the life of the sister he once saw as a mortal threat. "It's wonderful that Michalis has reformed to the point where Lena will take him."

And at this grudging admission that Michalis was not the bane of the world, Elice smiled.

X

"Why are you invading other countries? Have you been blinded by ambition?"

Marth carried with him a number to terrible things said to him through the years-- curses hurled in battle, lies offered in council, and all manner of malice intended to break him, to distract him long enough to make a fatal error. Morzas' gloating account of his mother's death. Gharnef's promise to meet him in hell. Virtually anything that came from the mouth of General Lang. All the hatred and venom that Hardin poured out on him before their duel, words that Marth prayed came from the Darksphere and not Hardin's true heart. One cry, though, stood out above the rest.

The Battle of the Pass was pure misery. Marth already felt battered in spirit from Abel's attempt to kill him, not to mention the fresh damage done to Altea in his absence. When he'd seen the Aurelian soldiers riding out, Marth imagined the Wolfsguard had come to join him. After all-- taking Gra had been as simple as a conversation with Princess Sheema, and the King of Aurelis had already given him the Lifesphere, and Hardin was so _obviously_ mad that Captain Wolf and his men must see it too.

Instead, Marth got an arrow in his shoulder and a reason to thank the gods that this time, Captain Wolf _wasn't_ using the Parthia. A shot from that sacred bow landing so close to the throat would likely have killed him. Which, as it happened, would have suited Wolf nicely. Marth didn't recall the Aurelians as a talkative crew, but they all had a fair amount to tell him this time, none of it any good. And the worst of it wasn't Wolf's cold pride, or Vyland's bluster, but the things Sedgar screamed in grief and disbelief and fury. It stunned Marth enough to stay his hand, leaving Sedgar time to reload and raise his bow. Marth could accept that Sedgar might not ally with them now-- not with Wolf on the ground, and Vyland dead from Thoron paired with Catria's javelin. But this visceral fear and hatred-- invading other countries?-- no, Marth was not prepared for it. They'd fought alongside one another from Aurelis to Dolhr in the War of Darkness, and this was how Sedgar viewed him?

_Blinded by ambition...._

Sedgar's sincere belief that it was Marth in the wrong, _Marth_ who was crushing other countries for the thrill or the glory... it unnerved him as badly as had any of the war's betrayals. And why, in the end, _was_ Marth leading his army through the pass, or tearing around in Grust and Gra and everywhere else on the continent? Did being Anri's descendant and inheriting Falchion and getting the blessing of Divine Dragon Lords who claimed to not care about humanity anyway somehow entitle Marth to run over all Archanea doing what he felt was right? He couldn't even keep his own kingdom in one piece.

Any doubt Marth had about his own fitness to rule Altea was magnified a hundredfold after the Battle of the Pass. Marth looked into Sedgar's eyes as the horseman died, and saw himself reflected as a monster. Sedgar's lifeblood on Marth's rapier seemed a mute testimony that Marth was in over his head-- who then, was the villain at the Pass? The slayer, or the slain?

X

"Oh! Look at you." Just what Elice had said when they'd been reunited in Thabes after three terrible years. Yet, Caeda seemed little pleased with what she saw in him now. She took his face between her small hands and looked him over thoroughly, peering into his eyes, tracing across his cheek, pulling at a strand of his hair. Marth felt like a pegasus being inspected before battle; he was half surprised that Caeda didn't force his mouth open to examine his teeth.

"You've been working yourself to death," she said at last. "You really must stop."

Cain had sent for her, it seemed. Quite without permission from Marth or Elice, and without even Jagen's knowledge, but Marth had no inclination to discipline Cain for stepping out of bounds in this case. Caeda in her red gown was like a single scarlet anemone in a field of pale narcissi-- vivid, arresting, seeming to float upon the wind. Just as the velvety petals of the anemone fairly begged to be touched, so Caeda filled Marth with the longing to touch, to hold. To embrace. If her mission was to distract Marth, Cain could not have chosen a better agent.

Clever Caeda brought with her an _arsenal_ of distractions. One was a spy-glass, a tube of wood fitted with pieces of curved glass that made everything look much larger than it did to the eye. Merchants from the east brought them to Talys, she explained. They were useful in war, to see enemy forces from a great distance, but Marth and Caeda used the spy-glass to look at birds and whales far out to sea, to look at mountains on the moon and to turn the glowing band of the Milky Way into thousands of tiny stars. She also brought a kite with her from Talys; Marth remembered sailing such a curious box of fabric and sticks on windy days during his exile. He and Caeda went down to the shore to fly the new kite at the first opportunity. The brisk winds of autumn picked their kite up immediately and it sailed out over the water, a dark blue splash against the paler blue of the sky.

They took turns at first, passing the reel of string back and forth, but before long they stood together, Marth's hands enclosing Caeda's which in turn guided the kite string. Caeda had tied back her hair, but the wind blew it free now, and strands of it kept drifting against Marth's face. It tickled, but not in an unpleasant way, and in between the kiss of Caeda's hair, and the salt air, and the sparkle of sunlight on the water... well, the moment almost seemed enchanted. When Caeda spoke, and so broke the spell, Marth was just a little disappointed.

"In Talys, we have a story of an ancient High King that united the island many centuries ago." Modern Talys, of course had been fragmented before Caeda's own father forged it into one kingdom. "He was just and merciful and everyone loved him, but one day a blight took over the land. No lambs or calves were born, and the crops didn't sprout, and it seemed all Talys would starve. So the king went to the fields, and he cut his wrist with his own sword and watered the fields with his blood. That ended the blight, but the king died, and all the different knights fell out amongst themselves and the united kingdom broke apart."

"I've heard versions of that tale before. The moral being that the welfare of a kingdom goes beyond the life of an individual king. Doesn't your father have a saying--"

"I never liked that story," she concluded, as though Marth had not spoken.

X

Caeda brought more with her than unusual gifts. Talys differed sharply from the continent in certain domestic practices, something Marth had not noticed during his exile. These were the kind of details a careful advisor might keep from young boy, though.

"In Talys, a pre-contract is the same as a marriage," Caeda announced when the date of their wedding was again pushed back, this time on account of unrest in Gra.

"If an engagement contract counts as marriage, why would anyone bother getting married?"

"Most don't," Caeda blithely admitted. "It's not as though we have a proper bishop in Talys, anyway."

"We should ask Empress Nyna to grant your fair island a bishop, then." What Caeda suggested was outright scandalous. Altea's future queen would need to be a little more circumspect about her strange native traditions.

Negotiations with the nobles of Gra dragged on, and on. Autumn turned to winter, and the year 608 ceded to 609-- or Year Four, as the new calendar had it. Marth and Caeda began to plan their wedding and the coronation for the fourth month of the year, to coincide with Marth's twenty-first birthday.

"Give them a hard date and let them know you'll proceed without them," Caeda said of the recalcitrant nobles. "They'll yield rather than be left out of the honors."

Like the honor of having a wife or daughter of Gra carrying Caeda's train. Caeda's wedding dress, a confection of white silk and lace, was already finished. Marth found it a strange choice; Altean royal brides wore silver and gold, while white was reserved for a queen in mourning. Caeda's insistence on her native fashion seemed an ill omen.

"White is the color of purity," Caeda insisted.

"I thought that in Talys, the rite of marriage wasn't so important-- oh, never mind."

White was the color of purity in Altea as well-- purity, and starkness, and also death. White reminded him of the land of the Ice Dragons, of bones, of the crumbling marble of Raman Temple. White violets looked like small ghosts in the woods, while white lilacs seemed to have been bled of their charm. Pegasus wings, divine dragon wings-- so many conflicting associations for the color that wasn't.

X

Sir Arran died of his lingering illness; the paladin had been ailing even before the outbreak of war, so his passing brought sadness but little surprise. To honor the former captain, Marth arranged for Arran's funeral to be in St. Anri's Temple, and Cain, Cecilia, Rody, Draug, and Ryan served as pallbearers. Jagen tried to go in Cecilia's stead, claiming his old bones were up to the burden, but Marth recognized when his mentor was protesting too much. Cecilia performed her duty admirably, and Jagen was an honorary pallbearer, and that was that.

Gordin, who hadn't been especially close to Arran, returned from Pales for the service; Marth had hoped that two other former Temple Knights might also turn up at the funeral. Yet there was no trace of Abel, no whisper of Est. They, like so many of those who once fought alongside Marth, seemed lost upon the wind.

"Arran wanted more than anything else to die in battle," Caeda said as she shrugged off the sober mantle she'd worn to the service. "He was a fool."

"Caeda, it's a terribly cruel thing to say," Marth began, and Caeda cut him off as though she already knew every word of the defense he planned to make for poor Arran.

"I'm tired of people in love with the glory of death. You've seen it, and I've seen it. Death is terrible, Marth. It's rotten and slimy and smells bad. Whether it's a young archer being gutted by an axe or a dried-up old paladin pissing himself in his bed, it smells the same. The worms are the same."

It was strange to see such ugly words coming from Caeda's little rosy mouth, but Marth admitted to himself she did have a point. Caeda wrapped her slender arms around him, making her intense and tear-stained plea for love and life over the sterile "glory" of death. What did Arran get for his efforts at heroism besides the miserable bedridden end he'd never wanted? What did moldy old Anri get out of saving the world besides a few bittersweet memories of the princess who gave both her Fire Emblem and her own self to another?

In the end, Marth also admitted that Caeda had a point regarding certain domestic customs of Talys.

X

Catria the White passed through Altea again, bringing greetings from King Michalis, Queen Lena, and the Macedonian princesses. Marth wished he could give Catria some tidings of her sister, but there still was no word of Est. The too-vivid memory of that sparkling young girl floated through Marth's mind often. Est, who came barreling out of the skies to the west of Chiasmir Bridge, the Mercurius sword in her hand. That made another on the growing list of those cursed by the "holy" relics of Archanea, Marth thought. Camus, Abel, Hardin. Wolf. Est.

"It seems King Michalis has rebuilding efforts well in hand," Catria said. "Palla and I have been tempted to take off for Valencia, to see if Est ended up there." In between wars, the Whitewings had gotten mixed up in another continent's troubles; with Valencia now at peace, it might have seemed a tempting refuge for the youngest of the trio.

If Valencia were still at peace. How easily things could fall apart....

"Catria, I have something else you might search for."

"My lord?" Catria's eyebrows shot up.

"The Leo fragment of the Starsphere."

Catria had a quick mind, and she guessed the essence of the mission in a heartbeat. Marth saw, too, the glimmer of adventure in the Macedonian knight's eyes.

"Have you any lead on its possible location, sire?"

"Chiasmir. I've been looking into this for some time, and there are reports of a thief with a fabulous treasure that surfaced in the area shortly after our battle at the bridge. It's said to be a strange jewel that gives its bearer a great increase in strength."

"The strength of a lion?"

"So it would seem."

It was settled, then. Catria would put off her trip to Valencia awhile in favor of scouring Archanea for the Leo fragment. As they discussed the mission, Marth felt that Catria came alive in a way he hadn't seen her since the war with Hardin. This was the Catria he remembered from the "good" war of 604, a Catria with sparkling eyes and a smile hovering about her lips.

"Once I have the Leo shard, I'll bring it back straight-away," she promised.

"No, Catria. Better to take it to Lord Gotoh. He should be in his temple-- you remember the way." The treacherous Path of Anri should give little trouble to Catria; she and her dragon could sail over the desert and its threats. "Take these to Lord Gotoh as well."

He handed her the pouch containing the other pieces of the Starsphere. Catria's eyes widened. To carry a few of these shards would increase her agility, her speed, her accuracy with a weapon, her resistance to magic. To carry all of them would make Catria a one-woman army.

"My lord, it is an honor."

"I'll have the rest of the spheres here in Altea. Once we have the Starsphere mended, we'll take them all to Pales and unite them with the Fire Emblem." For the first time, Marth regretted giving the Emblem back to Nyna with such haste. Still, the Empress would know the importance of restoring the Emblem to its full power... it could well be the grand achievement of Nyna's reign. A lasting peace, instead of a weary pause between wars.

"Catria, take this also." He withdrew the locket and chain from beneath his shirt, unfastened the clasp, and held it out to her. "It contains a fragment of the Aum staff. Elice gave it to me, and I carried it all through the last war. I am not certain how it works, as I never had to use it, but if you find yourself in serious trouble, it's supposed to help."

A reverent expression passed over Catria's face as she considered the fragment of the sacred staff. Catria tucked the bag of Starsphere shards inside her tunic, then knelt before him, the locket tight in her grasp.

"I will not fail you, my lord," she said.

X

Gradivus, destroyer of the most noble knights on Archanea. Parthia, the bow of fire whose users turned traitor. Mercurius, sower of strife among allies. And, of course, the Fire Emblem. With all five orbs recovered and the Emblem restored, perhaps the curse on the other weapons could be exorcised.

Once he saw Catria off on her mission, Marth felt an added measure of peace that carried him from one day to the next. The thought of Catria was like a sentry in his mind, blocking off the dark corner that had fretted so long over the Starsphere. If only he had thought of the plan before! Yet, it would have been unkind to delay Catria in her search for Est. Now that Catria was desperate enough to consider searching foreign continents... yes, now was the time to give Catria a new task to sustain _her_. At times, he would find himself reaching for the Aum locket out of habit, and when his hand closed around nothing, Marth would imagine bold Catria searching fearlessly for the last shard, and would smile to himself.

The troubled visions that came to him in the night finally stopped, though that might have been Caeda's doing more than just the anticipation of completing the Starsphere. Caeda made the long nights more cheerful by far. Granted, this caused its own perils. Elice held her tongue about the spread of pernicious foreign customs to Castle Altea. Servants talked, though, and aging counselors had their own opinions about the mores of Talys.

"Is it true that the princess had an especially close relationship with Lorenz of Grust?" asked Lord Jeoffrey, a holdover from the reign of Marth's father. Marth never had liked the man much; Jeoffrey had too much imagination in some areas, and none at all in the matters where it might have counted.

"General Lorenz cared for Princess Caeda as an uncle would for his niece."

"It is said the princess positively charmed Lorenz into abandoning his post at the Grusthold."

"Lorenz wished to join our cause in any event. Princess Caeda only gave him an excuse to follow his conscience."

Marth had both Jagen and Cain to support his version of events, but now that Jeoffrey had raised the blasted issue, other counselors would be thinking of it as well. Criticism began to bubble up regarding not only Caeda's virtue but her choice in clothing, her manner of speech, and her habit of taking unchaperoned flights on her pegasus. One even brought up the spy-glass, believing it to be an enchanted or possibly cursed object that fooled the eye into seeing falsely.

Elice finally cornered him in the library one evening.

"Marth?" she said, in the elder-sister voice he knew too well.

"Yes?" Marth planned to stand his ground; in a few weeks more he'd be of age, bound to the advice of his sister only by courtesy and affection. He expected a full lecture on morality and duty, but instead Elice had only a brief warning for him.

"You should be more careful. May I remind you of King Charon of Archanea?"

"Yes, I _am_ aware of the sad story of the twentieth king." Charon, only seventeen at the time of his accession, allegedly wore himself out with his energetic young bride. His reign lasted less than a year.

X

They were looking over maps together, poring over an archipelago in the sea between Altea and Grust that was being contested by Prince Yubello's new Regent. Old General Lorenz hadn't given his neighbors in Altea any trouble, but Lord Oliver seemed to feel he had something to prove by picking fights over rocks and handfuls of sand.

"Just cede that one," Caeda pointed to a good-sized island not far from the coast of Raman. "It shows up on the map from 539 without any documentation. It isn't on any of the maps from Anri's time."

"Altean control of it does seem to date to the survey ordered by King Marcelus. No one has contested it until now, though."

"Gift it to them," Caeda said.

`"It's good farmland. The best in the whole chain of islands, if I recall."

"Exactly. Grust doesn't have a lot of that, especially now. Well-fed neighbors are peaceful neighbors."

"Says the princess of an island kingdom."

"Says your resident expert on import/export issues. Grust will like you more if they don't have to buy as much food from your granaries. Besides, the only decent harbor is on the next island down the chain, and you'll keep that one." Caeda was so fine-boned and delicate, her face so sweet and innocent, that people were continually caught off-guard by the quicksilver mind that animated her wide blue eyes. Even Marth, who'd known her now for near one-third of his life, was surprised by her; Caeda had the ability to leap over apparent obstacles to get to an answer. On the chessboard that war and politics alike made of Altea, Caeda was a true knight, which made Marth wonder who the queen might really be.

"Ah, Caeda. I do agree with you. I'll have to bring you along to the council where I explain to Jagen and the rest that we're throwing the dogs of Grust a bone."

Caeda smiled in a way that made Marth suspect the Princess of Talys would be the one to explain to the Altean Council they were ceding that blasted island.

They'd gotten quite intertwined during the discussion of old maps and tracts of land, and there wasn't time to separate before Elice entered. Her severe expression made Marth anticipate another rebuke about inappropriate conduct.

"Caeda, we've a messenger from Talys. I fear your father is gravely ill."

All the sparkle drained out of Caeda's face, and she sat quiet with her tiny hands still in her lap as Elice provided more detail. Marth felt his heart quicken and slow erratically as Elice spoke, as he considered the terrible dimensions of this situation. King Mostyn had no living brothers, and no surviving children besides Caeda. They'd known Mostyn was getting on in years-- he was of an age with poor General Lorenz, a generation older than Marth's own father. They'd known Caeda would have to succeed as queen one day, lest Talys fall back into internecine squabbles. Yet Mostyn remained so keen-witted and vigorous that they'd all simply expected the king to see a full century.

Caeda departed at dawn two days later.

"Ogma will hold the castle until I arrive," she said with a hollow laugh. "Don't worry about me any. Take care, Marth." And she kissed him on the cheek in a manner that the most tiresome moralist in Altea could not have faulted.

"I'll have prayers said for your father's recovery," he promised her, drawing the mantle of duty over the heartache he felt.

X

It was spring now, but Marth scarcely noticed the retreat of frost, the returning birds and the flowers in bud. Without Caeda, he felt adrift, like the mats of seaweed and foam that floated uselessly on the ocean until the tide tossed them up onto the beach. To fill the void in his days, Marth took again to visiting the villages-- Easthaven, Westhaven, the little hamlets that went nameless on the maps. In one such place, near the Khadein Channel, he stopped for refreshment at the cottage of an elderly woman. She welcomed him in; instead of seeming star-struck, as younger ladies tended to be around their prince, this woman had a different manner-- courteous, yes, but also somehow possessive. Marth supposed it to be a grandmotherly manner, but he had never known his grandmothers and so couldn't say for certain.

She offered him rose-berry tea; it tasted at first too thin, too sharp. Marth was used to drinking all sorts of things for ceremony's sake and had no problem pretending that he liked it. Most villagers talked freely if one came to visit them; Marth learned a great deal this way over the years. This particular woman-- Auntie Edith, she was called-- merely stood watching him for some time before she voiced her opinions.

"You have changed, sire. We can see how much you've suffered on our behalf."

Talk like that made Marth uncomfortable. He had in truth been _spared_ much suffering thanks to Elice's many sacrifices. Elice had suffered in captivity; Altea itself had suffered during the years he was safe in Talys, dreaming of vengeance. His people suffered further in the second war while he was chasing trouble in Grust and Macedon. It surprised him at times that they even welcomed their wayward prince back to the land.

Marth had a half-dozen answers for an exchange like this ready in his mind, but for once he used none of them. They regarded each other for a moment-- prince and peasant, young man and old woman. She must have been born in the reign of his great-grandfather, Marth decided.

_... and that's why you're just a boy_

"Thank you. It has such a clean taste," he said, and handed back the cup.

"My lord is welcome," she said, and beamed at him. "There's nothing in it but the finest rose-berries of North Altea, from my own humble garden."

In truth, he felt refreshed upon leaving the cottage, whereas tea with Elice always left him sleepy. He took his time riding back to the Castle. High patchy clouds to the north warned of an incoming cold front, but instead of calculating the chances of damaging frost, Marth thought of his kite. A brisk north wind would carry it far above the waters; he would have to take it down to the shore that evening.

Marth stopped paying visits to the villages after that. When the weather was fair, and he could spare the time, he'd ride alone, accompanied by only the wind and the clouds. Now and then, he would take out Caeda's spy-glass, and scan the horizon for a well-loved flier. Caeda, preferably. If not Caeda herself, then Catria, back with the news that the Starsphere was restored, and they could get on with sealing up the powers of the Dark Dragon for all time.

XXX

The fourteenth day of the fourth month started well for Merric. Once morning prayers were done, he and Elice took a stroll, unchaperoned, through the glade beyond the castle walls. Translucent green leaves had unfurled on the trees, and sweet violets, the surest symbol of spring, colored the ground. Merric gathered a handful; they were the same deep, soft blue as Elice's eyes.

They went to the fairgrounds, which lay west of the castle, surrounded on three sides by Altea's main river. Even during war and occupation the fairgrounds were a lively place of commerce and entertainment, and now there were fully four times as many vendors offering everything from cut flowers to weapons imported from some other continent. Merric found it a fresh experience to browse the stalls without the goal of just picking up enough Blizzard tomes and vulneraries to last through the next few battles. Instead, he and Elice lost themselves in the rows of herbs, glassware, textiles and jewels. One ancient vendor (Merric suspected her to be a manakete) had a cart of equally ancient scrolls and tomes. None of the tomes were magical, in the sense that Merric knew, but they promised to be fascinating. He might have spent all his gold in that one place had Elice not steered him off to watch puppet theatre.

"Master Terence runs the oldest theatre troupe in Altea," Elice said to him. "You remember him from before, don't you, Merric?"

"Of course. The puppet shows are my favorite part of any festival." Though in truth it was the special effects, the smoke and bursts of colored light, that fascinated him as a child. Merric would practice long hours until he could duplicate those effects for his own amusement.

The first play was-- what else?-- "Anri and the Dragon." It was the most-performed play in Altea; Merric had seen versions ranging from puppet-shows like this to the grand pageants done at the Temple each Midwinter Festival to a particularly subversive adaptation staged by his fellow students in Khadein. At the time, Merric had laughed at the irreverent skewering of Altea's sacrosanct hero, but looking back he had to wonder how many of those laughing along were Gharnef's own tools.

Merric didn't pay much attention to the script itself-- he knew the whole dragon-killing part far too well-- but he did watch closely the puppets themselves. They were well-used and lovingly restored, which was to say they were very old. The conventions of the Anri plays probably dated to the hero's own lifetime, which wasn't to say that they were remotely true-to-life.

"That's not Anri-- it's our old friend Navarre."

"It does look rather like Navarre," Elice agreed of the long-haired puppet. "Change the tunic to red and the resemblance would be uncanny."

The puppet for Princess Artemis was outfitted with flowing blonde curls, no doubt in imitation of Empress Nyna. The "Artemis" of Merric's childhood always had dark hair. The toy Falchion looked nothing like the true sword, the Fire Emblem in no way resembled the genuine Emblem, and the Dark Dragon, however menacing it might seem to a child, bore little resemblance to Medeus. It really was puppet theatre, Merric decided. Nothing more than a wooden imitation of the truth, however charming it might be for its own sake. Still, Merric put himself into the mindset of a child, and clapped for the string-bound hero and his lifeless princess.

The second play was less to Merric's liking. Master Terence introduced his newest production with great pride and a nod to the distinguished guest in the audience, but the announcement of "Elice, Captive Princess" made Merric slink down in his seat. The puppets were pretty-- shiny new things with beautiful clothes-- but the script and the presentation made him want to choke. As puppet-Elice got down on her wooden knees to say another selfless prayer, Merric looked sidelong at the real Elice to see how she was taking this. She actually seemed to be enjoying this distortion of her own life, or at least she smiled and clapped as though she did. Merric contented himself with the thought that Elice, as a princess and priestess both, was used to that kind of charade to spare feelings.

After three interminable acts, the puppet princess and prince were reunited, and the flag of Altea dropped down to serve as the curtain, and all the audience got to its feet and clapped. Some cried. It all got worse when Elice addressed the Master Terence and his troupe with her thanks. Merric, by that point, was thinking fondly of the tent serving Aurelian wine.

It was just past sundown when they returned to the castle; the few mare's-tail clouds had turned to glowing rose, and west wind blew in the first whisper of summer. Merric had pushed the terrible puppet-play out of his mind; he positively looked forward to another evening of tea and sweets and fourth-century poetry. Elice read from a saucy book of lyric poems from the glory days of Thabes, when it reigned as the cultural capital of western Archanea. Oh, they dissected all the references and imagery afterward, as though the poems were the text of the Raman Bible, but Merric was all too aware of a certain lightness of heart in them both, as though they were still feeling the effects of the afternoon's wine. Marth also seemed in better spirits that evening; Merric thought it was the first time he'd seen the prince smile since word came three days before that King Mostyn had died.

Most of Merric's thoughts were on Elice, though... the softness and depth of her eyes, the pale-rose flush that crept into her face after a glass of the smooth golden wine of Aurelis, the silver-bell music of her laugh and the--

The dull clatter of ceramic hitting wood. Merric and Elice broke off from staring at one another; their faces had drawn rather close together.

"Marth, what is the matter?"

The prince had both hands to his head.

"I don't think I want any today," Marth said, his voice strangely thick. Droplets of spilled tea glistened on the table. They seemed curiously dark to Merric, almost like blood.

Elice, already on her feet, took care of her brother. At least, she hustled him right out of the room, picking up speed when Marth indicated he might be sick on the floor. There were valuable books in the room, after all. Merric, still at the table, stared after them. The volume of poems lay open on the table, and a whisper of Elice's scent hung in the air. He had the strange hazy feeling of one coming out of a dream, akin to the feeling he'd had when Ellerean turned on him at the Academy. Merric didn't know then how much trouble he was actually in-- he only knew that his short-range plans for the future were utterly spoiled.

Merric wiped up some of the spilled tea with his finger. He had a strange impulse to taste it, but immediately thought better of the idea. He mopped up the spill and went to see if there was anything else he might do to help. He was, at least, now quite certain that he was sober.

XXX

Elice had them pour so much tea down his throat that Marth thought he was drowning in it. They needed water to quench the fire, Elice said, or perhaps she didn't say it. Marth couldn't really tell; the sound of his own heart, of his own blood in his ears, muffled all other sounds. Ears and eyes alike were playing tricks on him. Everything seemed suddenly sharp, as though the air had turned to crystal. Elice had a blaze of light around her, and whenever she moved Marth could see a trailing halo. Even when he closed his eyes, things were wrong. Strange combinations of thoughts clicked like the beads of an abacus. The beads shone like the sacred Spheres, and Marth realized, with perfect dream-logic, that each bead contained a soul. It seemed a giant hand moved the beads from one column to another, calculating each of their lives.

_Click_. King Osmond for Michalis. Why? Because Michalis was stronger than his sisters? _Click_. Emperor Hardin for Marth. Why? Did possession of Falchion alone best Hardin's courage and wisdom? _Click_. King Mostyn for... for what? What life countered Mostyn's death? _Click_. Sedgar for Catria, because Catria would find the last Starsphere shard and save them all.

The beads kept clicking away. Lorenz for the royal twins of Grust. Bishop Boa for Lady Midia. The entire line of Archanea for young princess Nyna. Michalis for... but no, Michalis hadn't died in the end. His bead was switched back. General Camus for...

"Camus for Sirius," he said aloud. "Camus for _Sirius_." Marth laughed at the absurd yet simple truth, and the movement made him want to retch.

"Shh. Lie still, brother." Elice's hand was cool upon his cheek. "Here, drink this."

"No more tea," he managed to say.

"It's only water. Drink."

He did so, though he felt no better when Elice took the cup away. He turned his head to press his cheek against Elice's cool hand. She began to smooth his tangled bangs away from his face; her touch was soothing at first, until Marth realized Elice's fingers were too cold, _ice_ cold, like the skin of a corpse. He looked at her then, really looked at her, the way he had in Thabes when he could scarcely believe in the sight of her and half-imagined her to be another of Gharnef's illusions.

It should have surprised him more than it did, but something gnawing in the back of his brain must have known the lie all along.

"You are not my sister." _It_ was something else entirely, with Elice's face stretched across the bones of _its_ skull. "You are _not_ my sister."

The false Elice covered its mouth with its hands, feigning shock. It should have covered the eyes instead; those cold and terrible eyes surely gave it away. Why had he not seen before, why had it taken him so very long to realize the truth?

"Merric. I have to speak with Merric." Marth closed his eyes and turned his face from the fiend impersonating his sister. "Elice... what have they done with you?"

XXX

The prince's fever burned itself out before sunrise. As dawn grew close, Merric stood at the window of Marth's bedchamber, watching the remaining stars fade before the advancing sun. The bells of St. Anri's and the castle chapel tolled out of time, one bell echoing the next so there seemed to be no silence in between the strikes.

"Elice." His mouth was dry; he had difficulty looking Elice in the eye. She embraced him, and Merric breathed in the familiar scent of her hair.

"Dear Merric. It was so kind of you to stay with him."

"It was... all I could do." Gods knew his Heal staff hadn't worked. "Elice, why couldn't we save him?"

"Merric," she sighed, and touched a gentle finger to his cheek. "You know your lessons as well as I. Fate gives to each of us an allotted time, and once that time is reached, no magic in our power can turn back the wheel of fate. We are not like the dragonkin, for whom each passing year is a thing of no consequence."

Yet there _was_ something that could send fate's wheel spinning back, as Elice well knew. Her Aum staff was long since broken, used in the aftermath of the War of Darkness, but at least one other staff existed, in the custody of the young princess of Grust. Princess Yumina lived in Pales, where she studied under Empress Nyna. If they sent word to Nyna, then....

Yet Merric's plans to cheat death seemed the furthest thing from Elice's mind. She bustled around the room with terrible efficiency-- straightening the tangled clothes on her brother's bed, disposing of the abandoned teacups and water pitcher, scattering spring flowers across the counterpane. Merric wrinkled his nose at the blossoms. Fragrant white lilac, the ill-starred flower, a symbol throughout Altea of a young person who died unmarried. Merric closed his eyes, but that didn't block out the scent. He always had loathed the perfume of white lilac.

On the seventeenth day of the fourth month, St. Anri's Temple streamed with banners, was fragrant with flowers, glowed with the light of a thousand candles. Yet the banners were deepest black instead of coronation blue, and the flowers were sickly white lilac instead of sweet violets. The last male heir of the line of Anri lay before the altar, Falchion dormant in his folded hands. It appeared that the entire population of Altea turned out to see their prince a final time; the line of visitors streamed past from daybreak to sundown.

The younger citizens, Merric thought, looked devastated. But anyone over fifty seemed too sober, too knowing, as though they'd expected their dazzling Prince of the Stars to flicker out. Then again, how many of them had been through this already? Tall and vigorous Cornelius, lost in battle, and his father Marius, dead in his prime, and... why, the oldest villagers might even remember Anri himself. They'd lost their heroes and saviors before, been disappointed before. Perhaps they suspected all along that their new star was but a meteor-- blazing through the sky like a second sun, but in the end leaving only a smoke trail.

Merric thought of these anonymous citizens of Altea to keep himself from thinking too long or hard on his friends. Grief left Gordin mute; Ryan did the speaking for his elder brother. Cecilia, so brave in battle, wept like a girl. Cain drew into himself so far that only his eyes seemed alive. Draug's cheeks glistened with silent tears, while Jagen looked to have aged twenty years in a night. Malledus, at death's door himself from long illness, walked to the bier supported on Merric's arm. Merric helped the frail tactician, whose fingers were cramped with age, as he laid his gift of lilacs before their prince.

"Truly, then, he was the second coming of Anri," the old man whispered. "His duty done, the gods called him back."

Merric said nothing. He did not see anything of the gods in his friend's spiral of suffering. Why would merciful deities deprive Marth of his senses, leave him unable to recognize his own sister in his final hours? Why would fate conspire to take Caeda from his side-- Caeda, who was embroiled in succession struggles with the nobles in far-away Talys, when she should have been with her love? Marth died repeating not Caeda's name, but that of Sedgar of Aurelis, apologizing again and again to the treacherous horseman for killing him. All the ghosts of the wars came back to haunt Marth-- Sedgar and Hardin, Lorenz and Bishop Boah, Abel and Est. The slain, the murdered, the disappeared. More than once, Merric had to leave the room, and each time when he returned, the litany of names was still in progress. _Tiki, Archsage Gotoh... I'm sorry. Sedgar, why wouldn't you listen to me? Catria...._

And then all the terrible things Marth had to say about Elice. Merric felt an awful sense of relief when his friend finally fell quiet.

"I hope the peace of the next world gives you more comfort than peace in our own," Merric whispered in that moment, but once he had a few hours to think it over, Merric only felt bitter.

In one too-brief moment of sense (something close to sense, anyway), Marth had bequeathed him the spy-glass.

"Look for Catria," the prince said. "She won't fail us."

X

The banners of Altea flew at half-staff, and all citizens wore their bands of mourning, yet the sun still rose and the tides surged and ebbed beneath the moon. So Merric resumed his morning walks, but with Cain at his side instead of his most dear friend. He no longer took tea with Elice in the evening; she was too busy with preparations to succeed to the throne as Altea's first reigning queen. Merric heard rumors of a diplomatic marriage, perhaps with the child-king of Grust. There weren't many young men of royal blood left on the continent, Merric thought sourly. Under those circumstances, an upstanding sage of Altea ought to be good for consideration. He kicked at the remains of a sand castle lying near the high-water mark; damp sand flew up into his robes, and Merric swore at the mess.

"Something's coming at us from the south," Cain said.

"A storm front?" Merric didn't look up at first, as he was busy dusting himself off.

"No. A flock of large birds, or... dragons."

_Dragons_. Merric took the spy-glass from his robes and handed it to Cain.

"Here, your eyes are better than mine."

"Dragoons from Macedon," Cain said after squinting at the shapes through the spy-glass. "Are they coming to pay their respects?"

"Rather late for that," Merric said, answering Cain's hard sarcasm. "Are they wearing black armbands?"

"I don't see any black. Just an ocean of red." Cain began to scan the horizon in a full circle, searching for other fronts of attack. "Damn, there's someone coming from the north as well."

Merric took the spy-glass and trained it on the incoming flier. This was but a single dragon, coming ever closer at a frantic pace. Merric strained his eye to its limits to identify the rider, hoping against his best instincts that he knew her face, that he could see her expression, that he might tell the success of her mission. For a moment, he fancied he could see _two_ riders, one smaller than the other, but clear sight eluded him.

"I must warn the princess and ready our knights for the attack," Cain was saying.

"I'll wait here to greet the dragoons. If _she_ gets here before they do, we may yet have a chance. Otherwise, Cain, it was a pleasure to serve with you."

Cain ran off, shouting to anyone in earshot to get ready for the invasion. Merric stood alone upon the shore. He threw wide his arms, put on a mad smile, and braced himself for the incoming wave.

**Finis**

[Author's Notes: _Everything is not going to be OK._

What are "bad" endings for except to make the player feel bad for screwing up the game? As for the ending... it _might_ be Catria flying to the rescue with Gotoh's blessing and Tiki along for the ride. It might be Catria coming in with Princess Yumina and her trusty Aum staff. It might not be Catria at all-- what's Palla been up to this whole time? Heck, maybe it's Est! Or maybe Catria _found_ Est somewhere along the way.

Is Empress Nyna really Gharnef in disguise? Are the other priestesses-- Elice, Lena, Maria-- doppelgangers, or possessed, or unharmed? How much of this evil plot is just in Marth's head? Is sleeping with the Darksphere under the bed a good idea? That, Dear Reader, is entirely up to you. I think the text is open to multiple interpretations and varying degrees of darkness.

Marth is based on FE3 Marth-- big-eyed, kind-hearted and still naive at the age of twenty. Caeda, on the other hand, owes a lot more to FEDS Caeda, because FE3 Caeda is too bland to do much of anything with. FE3's Caeda has one bit of interesting characterization, but I already used it in the final chapter of "Love is Not a Victory March." Merric, Elice, and the rest are assembled from the game-canon toolbox with a faint dash of manga in Merric's case (the drinking, mostly). Additional notes to be posted on my DevArt account as linked in my profile.]


End file.
